In this age of anything goes, publishing houses are all jumping on the bandwagon to publish anything and everything, as long as they think that they have a market that would lap it up. In fact, you don't even need to always be a good writer. As long as you publish something that people would read, good writing be damn. I have actually reviewed books that look like they have been hurriedly edited (if edited at all). That by supposedly well published writers. Every consultant in management, grooming, real estate, feng shui, yada yada yada, are publishing their books. In the book hypermarket, you can get anything from how to hammer a nail to how to how to be the next CEO. Talking about hype, Economist actually have an article about the hype surrounding Harry Potter books (and its ilk).. Even bloggers get published because of their blogs. Joseph Epstein has an advice for all potential writers who think that they will write the next great novel or whatever genre they are hoping to write.
I notice that that many publishing houses outside the western sphere do not get listed on google very much, let alone Amazon. Not to say that they aren't listed. It's just that it is hard to find them. I'll see if I can find a list of all the publishing houses within South East Asia, for a start. If there aren't any, I will start compiling them. Perhaps I should put out a call to all houses to send me their website, email, address and types of publications? Or should it be better to compile a list of available books in SEA? As a freelance reviewer, I try checking out publishing houses to get their book lists. I notice that sometimes, some of these houses have not published anything new in a long time. Perhaps they are sending me their outdated list?
What are your thoughts? With the advent of e-publishing, there are now many self-published authors out there. Some stuff are good. The rest is pure vanity.
To get some books from Malaysia, Singapore and some other countries in SEA, you might want to try Silverfishbooks
